Hosea
4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast
rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest
to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget
thy children.

When
we hear the phrase “separation of church and state” we understand
it to mean something other than what our Founders understood it to be.
We understand it to mean a total separation of any religious views or
doctrines from all of government. Our Founders saw it as it was meant
by Jefferson’s statement in his response to the Danbury Baptist
Association in 1801 and that was a total separation of any government
control over religion. These two ideas are diametrically opposed to
each other. The separation that Jefferson spoke of was an institutional
separation, NOT an influential separation. U.S. Congressional (June
7-September25, 1789) records clearly show the intent of the First Amendment.
1.) The federal government was not to allow a single denomination running
the nation. They had experienced that while under the rule of England
where only one type of Bible was allowed, worship had to be done in
a particular manner, and the state decided the doctrines. 2.) The federal
government had no authority on religious expression.

Today
we see that the federal government has ignored this part of the First
Amendment. Teachers can’t even have Bibles in their desks; students
are being arrested for reading their Bible during study hall, and there
are no prayers at sporting events or graduations. The origins of the
phrase “separation of church and state” need to be examined
to understand just what it really means.

First,
we have to know that the phrase “separation of church and state”
is not found in any of our Founding documents, none! This phrase was
taken out of a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1801 to the Danbury
Baptist Association in response to their concern over the possible government
involvement in religious activities. They believed that the wording
of the First Amendment indicated a government granted right as opposed
to a God granted right to religion. They were concerned that someday
the government might try to regulate religious expression as we see
today with court rulings on when and where we can pray, display the
10 Commandments, etc. Jefferson’s response is evident in its declaration
of free expression without government interference. Here is a portion
of that letter: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies
solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for
his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government
reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence
that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature
should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of
separation between church and State.

Adhering
to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the
rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress
of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights,
convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
Jefferson mentioned “natural rights.” This statement, in
his day, meant that it was a right granted by God (natural), and not
by man and government. They had no authority to dictate when or where
a person could pray, what he could pray or how he could pray. This belief
was not challenged for nearly a half a century when in 1853 a group
challenged Congress to separate Christian principles from government
and to remove chaplains from Congress and the military. Their desire
was to not have government protect religious expression in the public
square but use government to remove religious expression from the public
square. The House Judiciary Committee spent a year studying this and
reported on March 27, 1854: “Had the people [Founding Fathers],
during the Revolution, a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity,
that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle.

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At
the time of the adoption of the Constitution and its amendments, the
universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, but
not any one sect [denomination]. In this age, there is no substitute
for Christianity. That was the religion of the Founders of the republic
and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendents.”
Two months later that same committee issued this statement; “The
great vital and conservative element in our system [the thing that holds
our system together] is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines
and the divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Understand
that this is Congress that is refusing to separate Christian principles
from government. In 1878 in Reynolds v United States, this case was
another attempt to separate Christianity from government; the Supreme
Court issued its decision using the greater part of Jefferson’s
letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in proving that his letter
called for an institutional separation not an influential separation.

Biblically
there are examples of separation of church and state. In 2 Chronicles
26:16-21 we see where king Uzziah attempted to make sacrifices in the
temple and was warned by the priests but he tried to make the sacrifices
anyway. The Lord struck him with leprosy and he eventually died of that
disease. God has called the civil government to do one thing and the
church to do one thing. When the church picked up the sword in the Middle
Ages, atrocities were committed in the name of God. This should never
have happened, but the church stepped into an authority that God had
not ordained for the church and the results were death and destruction.

The
big break from the original intent occurred in 1947 in the case of Everson
v Board of Education. The Supreme Court instituted a brand new policy
by using only the eight word phrase from Jefferson’s 1801 letter
to the Danbury Baptist Association and ignoring the rest of the letter.
“The
First Amendment has erected ‘a wall of separation between church
and state’. That wall must be kept high and impregnable.”
For the first time in our history Jefferson’s letter, which was
not an official document, would be used to remove religion from the
public square instead of protecting religion in the public square. This
decision was also made with no precedents giving a foundation to their
decision. This was the first time in the Court’s history that
they handed down a decision without precedence. This is a 180 degree
reversal of what our First Amendment had always stood for. This decision
set the ground work for the 1962 case of Engle v Vitale where for the
first time in American history we separated Christian principles from
education. The ruling made it unconstitutional for a student to engage
in voluntary prayer. This ruling also changed, for the first time in
American jurisprudence, the meaning of the word church. For 170 years
the court defined ‘church’ as being a federally acknowledged
denomination. In the 1962 case it redefined the term ‘church’
to mean any religious activity in public.

The
activist courts have restructured the First Amendment to mean what they
want it to mean. They all have stated that this is what Jefferson wanted
when he wrote it. This shows the ignorance of our history by the people
who are supposed to uphold what our Founding Fathers wanted. Jefferson
was not involved in the writing of the First Amendment. He was overseas
at the time and did not see it until it had been ratified. There were
90 men that had input into its wording, but at no time was the phrase
“separation of church and state” ever mentioned.

Congressional
records show all the conversations that took place during the time it
was being drafted, so if that was their intent, why is there no record
of it ever being brought up? Fisher Ames was the person who came up
with the final wording for the First Amendment. When you study his writings
you will find that he believed that the Bible should be the main book
used for learning in our public schools, not removed from schools.

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Our
Founding Fathers wanted an open government and in the Constitution Article
1, Section 5, paragraph 3 it states that there will be written records
of the proceedings of Congress. This ensures an open, accessible, and
accountable government. It was also to describe the words and actions
of elected officials. Today there are public libraries that refuse to
allow any type of meeting by religious groups declaring the “separation
of church and state”, yet in the first week of December of 1800
Congress declared that the Capitol building would be used as a church
on Sundays. This is verified by many members of Congress that attended
the services at the Capitol and wrote about it in their diaries.

Our
history has been taken from us and a false history has been put in its
place. We must dust off our real history and demand that it be taught.

Pastor Roger
Anghis is the Founder of RestoreFreeSpeech.org, an organization designed
to draw attention to the need of returning free speech rights to churches
that was restricted in 1954.

President of
The Damascus Project, TheDamascusProject.org,
which has a stated purpose of teaching pastors and lay people the need
of the churches involvement in the political arena and to teach the
historical role of Christianity in the politics of the United States.
Married-37 years, 3 children, three grandchildren.